Congratulations to American Furniture Warehouse on their most recent opening in Katy, Texas. This new store totals over 350,000 square feet, with about 150,000 square feet as a furniture showroom, the balance is the warehouse. Velocity Retail Group’s Darren Pitts began working with American Furniture Warehouse in 2015. Pitts is an executive vice president and founding partner of Velocity Retail Group. Through the years Pitts has served as AFW’s real estate consultant and advisor for new markets as the brand expands in select markets throughout the southwest. “We first began working with Jake and his team on an overall strategy for various markets. With the positive and booming economy in Houston this market soon became top on our list to expand,” said Pitts. The strategy was developed that would cover the sprawling Houston metropolitan area with three mega locations: One Southeast in Webster, one west in Katy, and one north in Conroe. The Webster store opened in 2019, the Katy store located at Interstate 10 and Pin Oak Road, is opening this weekend. The third location was acquired at year-end 2019 and is projected to open in 2021, completing the original strategy for Houston.
Darren contacted the X Team Retail Advisors office in Houston and tapped Ben Brown of Baker Katz as the boots-on-the-ground broker to partner with. “Our stores are on 20 to 30 acre parcels and each one spans 350,000 to 500,000 square feet. About one-third is customer showroom, the balance is the warehouse. AFW is known to have a tremendous amount of inventory in house which allows customers to take furniture that same day, or have it delivered,” said Pitts. Brown worked with the local municipalities to secure support for each store. “It was truly a team effort between American Furniture Warehouse’s internal team, the property owners, and each local municipality to finalize the locations. We were very pleased with the final sites and look forward to having all of them open and operating and serving the greater Houston area,” said Brown.